'What's that?'
He wanted to ask about this to two people with him, but he decided against directly asking about it.
Who knows, Only he could see these colors!and perhaps those stones with colors would have quality forging metals.
"Which colored stones do you think have forging metals?"
Noah asked the fat man near him without taking his eyes off the stones on the platform.
"Excuse me?" The fat man seemed surprised.
"Colors? Every stone here is dark in color. Are you perhaps asking about shades of dark?"
So, only he could see the colors. Noah felt his heartbeat quickening. Without losing composure, he nodded, to which the fat man laughed.
"Haha. I guess you're new here. I'm Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln."
"Noah..."
"Oh, what a great name. 'No' before 'ah.' Haha."
Noah regretted initiating the conversation as Abraham started speaking nonstop.
Abraham was so talkative, he even detailed the full body structure of a famous female Ascendant in Zenith.
"...It's my third term in Zenith. If I can't complete my second ascension, I have to leave here." Abraham sighed.
Abraham awakened a healing-type talent in Tier 1. After Tier 3 awakening, he became a master healer.
He had high value in a group challenging rifts, which would be enough for him to live off for the rest of his life.
However, everyone in Zenith didn't want such a life. They wanted to move forward, until they reached their final goal: Solaris.
For that, they had to undergo ascension challenges, and the first two ascension challenges were solo.
"My every attributes except spirit is low. Even with my high spirit, I have no suitable fighting skills.
So, unless I awaken a talent suitable for fighting in Tier 9, I can't even dream of surviving a day in my second ascension."
That's why Abraham was here. In the hopes of learning perception of metal, so that his strength transformation at Tier 9 would give him a talent suitable for fighting.
Noah asked him why one could learn perception of metal through gambling.
Wouldn't it be better if he bought metal from the market, lest he waste money here?
"Perception won't work like that," Abraham rubbed his non-existent beard. "Before one goes to learn perception of an element, first he has to find that same element from the open air.
If one can't do that, how can he control that element?"
So, Abraham was here to find the presence of metals in the gambling stones and thus start his perception training.
As per him, every gambler here had the same aim.
"Or else, why do you think they waste their time here?" Abraham scoffed. "A single dungeon run may give them enough metals."
That's true. Noah also obtained huge amounts of metals by clearing only a floor in a dungeon.
So, the colored steams he was seeing now, was this because of his perception? Perhaps working in Master Evlin's smithy, he had learned perception of metal!
The gambling started as people began choosing stones. Most of them asked to cut the stone at a spot, which the workers skillfully did within seconds.
Finally, the first stone with colorful steam came into view. It had a red hue mixed with a bit of orange.
"1200..." someone shouted. Noah looked at the uneven stone with curiosity. It had a rough surface and, unlike other stones gambled before it, was smaller in size.
As no one called for a higher price, this stone sold for 1200 credits. Noah waited for the stone to be cut as a red metal came into view.
"Iron...not bad."
Albeit in lesser quality than Noah got from the dungeon, it still had higher demand in the market. Most low-tier runners used weapons made of iron at lower stages.
Noah watched the gambling without participating as the rest of the stones hadn't shown colored steams and so didn't have metals in them.
After a few rounds of failed gamblings, another stone came onto the platform with a silver hue surrounding it.
Noah straightened his spine, deciding to call his first price on it.
"500..."
Noah felt a lot of gazes falling on him as it was the first time someone so shameless had called such a low price.
Even the attendant on the gambling platform looked towards him with surprise. For runners, a few thousand credits were nothing; no one cared about such an amount since they could obtain millions easily.
Abraham turned to him with a raised eyebrow, "That's so low, don't you think?" His voice was loud, probably most of the gamblers here heard it.
They also had the same opinion.
Noah yawned, "It's high considering nothing came out of the previous hundred stones."
"Haha, true."
So Noah obtained a stone containing an unknown metal for a lower price. He asked them to cut it.
"Silver... forging silver..." Abraham opened his mouth wide.
"It seems my luck is so good." Noah gave a cheeky smile, happy to get a high-quality metal worth nearly half a million for almost free.
He thanked the attendants and continued gambling, obtaining metals in every call.
At the end of the gambling, Abraham sat petrified, looking at him without blinking.
"You learned metal perception?"
"No, I worked at a smithy."